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World Buckfast Day Is Popping Off This Weekend

2 years ago2 years ago

Buckfast is so prominent in British culture for being the notorious hooligan tonic wine, this year it got its own easter egg, equipped with a mini Buckfast bottle, Buckfast pen, Buckfast lighter, and a Buckfast fridge magnet.

The makers of the iconic tonic wine are now encouraging Bucky lovers to celebrate the drink on World Buckfast Day this Saturday (May 13).

Encouraging Bucky drunkards to spend the entirety of the day consuming the 15% alcohol at home, with pals or in the gutter, the official Buckfast team launched the day to be celebrated worldwide on the 2nd Saturday of every May.

“A much needed day dedicated to the World’s Greatest Wine,” the Facebook event reads.

With the main event covering most of the globe, Buckfast have also arranged a World Buckfast Day event in Cypriot haven Ayia Napa, complete with a free ‘Buckfastbomb’ with every drink.

The fortified wine brewed by Benedictine monks at Buckfast Abbey, is a popular drink all over the UK, due to its ability to get you totally trolleyed. However, in recent years, Buckfast has become a real problem over in Scotland. Tipped to be the drink of Scottish drunks, teens and criminals, Buckfast is linked to drunken antics and thuggery there.

And yet, the beverage has become iconic and now boasts an ironic ‘cool factor’ amongst young people across the nation, who drink it to erode their own common sense then pass out.

Buckfast Abbey (for the unenlightened amongst you, that’s a place in Buckfastleigh, Devon) homes a bunch of Benedictine monks, who began producing the fortified wine we know as Buckfast in the 1890s after fleeing persecution in France. It was initially sold as a medicine, with the strap-line “Three small glasses a day, for good health and lively blood”. (Its reputation has since drooped wildly and is now credited with supplying the superpowers of destruction.)

The source of all the misguided beliefs about Buckfast’s origin stems from its newfound popularity in Scotland, in particular in Lanarkshire, Glasgow and Strathclyde. The latter had 6,500 Buckfast-related crime reports between 2010 and 2012 alone.

For anyone wondering whether producing and promoting an alcohol that has a “very definite” association with violence – a dude was sentenced after smashing a bottle of the juice over a boy’s head at a teenager’s birthday bash – is immoral or not, consider that sales of Buckfast wine helped the abbey bring in £8.8million, some of which is spent on community projects.

So, Bucky lovers, tip your glasses to the monks this weekend and lose yourself to Buckfast once again.